Micro Injection Molding

Medical Injection Molding Experts

One of the more challenging aspects of insert injection molding can be in the manufacturing of miniature or micro parts. Since the finished part itself is often smaller than .050”, the actual insert placed in the mold may be a small fraction of the total size. Aberdeen has 80 years of combined experience, knowledge and expertise in designing and producing molds which can hold such critical tolerances and dimensions.

Our specialty presses are well suited for this type of insert molding because of the short distance involved with our sprues and runners. Conventional presses may requires several inches or more of travel distance for the molding resin to eventually reach the mold cavity from the initial point of injection into the mold. During this travel process control is often compromised or diminished.

Aberdeen uses specialty book molds for micro parts that incorporate very short sprue and runner lengths, giving an equivalent direct gate advantage when molding micro parts. Process control is strictly adhered to and the result is finished parts that can hold very delicate features and critical tolerances.

Applications include medical devices used in surgery and others implanted into the body which have small cannula or tubing molded into place. Sometimes intricate passageways are molded into the part via thin wire mandrels which are carefully removed after molding, leaving tiny channels in place. In these cases the mandrels themselves become the inserts, and often have to have special coatings to release from the molded plastic resin.

They may also have to be fabricated out of special metals or alloys to be suitable for the insert molding application.

​

Case Study

​

Aberdeen has even molded miniature clear lenses into housings for use in commercial optical devices. In one particular case, a tiny clear polycarbonate lens with miniature positioning flanges on the sides is molded in a 4 cavity mold.

The lens is then placed into a second mold where the flanges keep it centered while a housing is over molded around the lens out of colored polycarbonate. Although this was a very challenging part, Aberdeen was able to successfully help bring the product to market where is continues to be met with great acceptance and demand.

Our specialty mold tooling concepts combined with small vertical molding presses allow us to continuously push the envelope in manufacturing ever smaller and more intricate products.